Canada, the UK and the Nuclear Agenda: Challenges and Opportunities

Like the UK, Canada is committed to ambitious carbon targets, which cannot be achieved without nuclear power in the energy mix. Yet nuclear power has remained highly sensitive, with concerns related for example to high costs of investment; safety, environmental and security questions; potential security risks; and issues related to the management of nuclear waste and decommissioning costs. The 2020 Canada-UK Colloquium reviewed recent progress and continuing challenges to nuclear power and its recently-released report made a number of recommendations to the two governments.

Founded in 1971 the Canada-UK Council exists to bring together leading politicians, officials, academics, businessmen, practitioners and members of the media to discuss matters of current public policy concern to each country. It does this through hosting annual colloquia, supported by the two governments and held alternately in each country.

Chair and Speaker Bios

Anthony Cary CMG is Chairman of the Canada-UK Council. He served as British Ambassador to Sweden (2003-06) and High Commissioner to Canada (2007-10). Previous diplomatic postings included Berlin, Kuala Lumpur and Washington DC. He served twice on secondment to the European Commission in Brussels, as deputy head of Leon Brittan's office there, and as head of Chris Patten’s. He has an MBA from Stanford Business School, where he was a Harkness Fellow.

Peter Haslam was Head of Policy at the Nuclear Industry Association between 2010 and 2019 and has over 40 years’ experience in the energy sector. Prior to joining the NIA, he was British Energy's Director of Government Affairs. During his career at BE, Peter developed and implemented the company's public affairs strategy at the Scottish, Westminster, and European levels. Prior to this, his roles included Public Affairs Manager at Nuclear Electric plc and Head of the Parliamentary Section at the Central Electricity Generating Board.

Jim Norton OBE, a member of the Canada-UK Council, is a Fellow of the UK Royal Academy of Engineering, where he is Chair of its Community of Practice in Digital Systems Engineering and a member of its Audit & Risk Committee. He is also a Pro-Chancellor of Coventry University. Jim is a non-executive director of Applegate Marketplace Ltd and a Trustee and Director of the Foundation for Information Policy Research.

Nicolas Maclean CMG is also a member of the Canada-UK Council and has worked as a nuclear consultant. For 15 years he was a part-time Political Assistant to Mrs Thatcher.  From 1979-1990 he was three times elected a Councillor for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. He was the initiator of the UK prototype for the Japan Education and Training Programme, (JET), the world’s largest international educational exchange programme. This year he was appointed a Professor of Economic and Social Studies at the UN University in Europe.